


He's Insane

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Insane!Dave, Insanity, M/M, Murder, i dont know what this is, i mean srs i was in the car for like 7 hours, i really fuckin dont, these things happen i guess, this is what came out of it so stfu its good ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:29:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were raised as a proper Texas gentleman.<br/>But you're not going to say please.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He's Insane

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this on part of a long long car drive between about 11pm to 2am so it isnt beta read and its also kind of shitty gomen

            Time is yours.

            But that isn’t enough.

            You want more than that—much much more—time is everything and nothing and is it really anything at all?

            Knight of Time.

            No, no, no, a knight is a servant and _you are not a servant._ You are Dave Strider, and Striders do not serve.

            You are the Knight of Time. You shift and bend and mold it until you are satisfied and then some. You can watch lives begin, you can watch them end. But that

            isn’t

            enough and you

            want

            more.

            You were raised as a proper Texas gentleman.

            But you’re not going to say please.

**== > Make a decision**

            You go for Kanaya first. She’s the nearest Space player and _imagine_ if you had Time and Space at your disposal. The problem, though, is that you don’t know how to take others’ powers.

            So you decide that if you’re the only one alive, you’ll be the most powerful.

            You think it’s a great idea.

_(you are insane you are insane you are insane)_

            Because really, who wouldn’t? It’s brilliant.

_(Dave snap out of it please)_

            The Sylph is relaxing on a couch, sewing something. You extend your hand and a weight settles in it—your sword. One of your smaller, broken ones. You step forward and raise it.

            “Dave..?” Kanaya looks up as you bring it down.

            Orange silk stains scarlet.

            You knew this would happen.

            The hilt is warm with the Seer’s blood. You twist it once and pull back. It vanishes into your sylladex.

            Rose falls into Kanaya’s lap. The latter cradles the former gently, fingers hovering over the stain, the rip; other hand holds the needle and thread like she’s going to lace the skin back together with added embroidery.

            “Why won’t it heal?” Green lips form the same words over and over and over.

            Black ones move, shudder; black-nailed fingers reach up to brush along Kanaya’s cheek. “Hero…” Rose coughs. Red and black go well together, you find. “A heroic death. P-protecting the one I… love most.” She smiles. It’s weak, shuddery. She doesn’t hold it for long.

            “No, no please, no,” the troll begs. “Rose, don’t leave me, no, please, you can’t.”

            “She’s going to,” you cut in. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

            The look she casts you in red-rimmed, but narrow, filled with malice as the life sinks out of the now still form in her arms. “I cannot imagine what triggered you to kill your ecto-sister, Dave Strider,” she says. Her voice is low, each and every syllable spiked with malevolence. “But at this point, I do not care, and I am going to kill you as many times as necessary until I have forgotten what you looked like without bloodstained skin.”

            You cannot keep the smirk from gracing your lips. “That isn’t going to happen, Maryam. Just give me some time to figure out how to make your death a little more heroic—oh, I know.” Two steps forward, your hand darts out at a speed only a Strider could manage and grasps the grey wrist of the hand that clutches a tube of lipstick. You lean forward, over Rose and close to Kanaya’s face, feeling her breath puff out in forced shallowness. “What if I told you that if you don’t let me kill you, I’ll make sure to head on back to a few minutes ago, tie up Rose, and force her to watch me kill you once, then twice, three times… She’ll be broken. So broken.”

            Rather than thin, dainty fingers, long, pale ones trace Kanaya’s tight jawline. She’ll agree. You see it in her eyes. She will agree to let you kill her so her Matesprit won’t suffer.

            God, you’re clever, aren’t you? You’ve impressed yourself.

            The tiny nod flicks a strand of hair over her forehead and, if not for that, it would have been almost completely indiscernible. You offer her a smile, genuine and almost apologetic; you feel the small sword drop into your hand again. Bright blood is now maroon. Slowly, just because you can, you slide its tip lightly down Kanaya’s jugular. She swallows, tilting back her head. You lean closer, lips brushing her ear, and breathe out, “Thank you,” before slicing the blade and severing the vein. Feet dance lithely back. Jade and red would remind you of Christmases spent lying bruised on the roof, and besides, you don’t want it to stain. In what could be mistaken for regret (though is nothing more than fascination), you watch the blood trickle onto Rose’s cheek, watch the greenish flush leave the troll’s skin, watch her body wilt.

            Very well done, Strider. Space and Light are gone.

            Thinking back on it, this Alpha Timeline Kanaya had not yet reached God Tier, and no heroic death was actually necessary. But it was still fun.

            Fun.

            Yeah, that’s the word.

            You recatchpalogue the weapon and leave the room. You know killing Karkat and Terezi will be simple, as neither are God Tier in this timeline. So you will make quick work of them.

            “Hey, Strider!” The voice originates in a room far from here but comes from your wrist. It’s that stupid watch Karkat had you make. You tug back your sleeve and tilt up the side of your lips.

            “’Sup,” you say, continuing your walk. Karket’s pixelated head and shoulders hover in the air a few inches above the device. He does that almost-a-smile thing that you used to think was cute—no homo—but now find somewhat revolting.

            “We were going to do that thing with the Mayor, you forgetful f-word,” he snaps at you, correcting himself before he cusses. No one swears around the Mayor. It’s just one of those things you Just Don’t Do.

            Right. That thing. With the cans. “Yeah, okay. I was just looking for Kanaya and Rose. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

            Karkat shrugs. “They probably just found some hidden alcove to make out some more,” he suggests, and you nod in agreement. Because that’s what Dave would do.

            “Anyway,” you say, “I’ll be there in a few. No big. Tell the Mayor I’m almost there.”

            “Fine. Can’t believe you’re actually late for this. We had this planned for like, three frickin’ days!”

            “What are days on this s-word rock?” you mutter. Karkat snickers.

            “Just get your a-word over here quick. Mayor’s waiting.” His image flickers away.

            You sift through your sylladex, examining the swords you have there. Perhaps you should just have him bleed to death, like Kanaya. That would be funny. The Knight of Blood, bleeding to death. So great. Yeah. You make a note to yourself to laugh at that later.

            Fast-forward a few moments and you’re stepping into the room where Karkat sits, legs crossed, holding two TAB cans in his hands and waiting for the Mayor to point out where he should put them. You drop into the same position that he’s in, knee hitting his. The Mayor turns, waves cheerfully. You tip your chin up. Goddamn, you love this guy. You’re not killing him. He’s far too cool for that. But you really don’t want him watching you kill Karkat, either, so you tap him on the shoulder and beckon him close. He hurries over to you and you move his little ragged hood so you can whisper where his ear would be.

            “Turn around, Mister Mayor, go work on the sky. Color over some clouds. Don’t turn back until I say, okay?”

            He tips his head, but nods and scurries over to the wall.

            He grabs the blue chalk.

            You grab the sharpest blade you carry.

            He scribbles over white.

            You scrape over grey.

            He adds color.

            You steal it.

            Karkat falls back with a thud. The Mayor jumps, about to turn, but shakes himself and resumes his coloring.

_(Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away, scene-filled clouds wither over a black and white battlefield.)_

            You say nothing to the troll, simply standing and grabbing the Mayor and hefting him up onto your shoulders. You take him out the other door, so he doesn’t see the body. That’d scare the little guy, and you really don’t want that. Mayor doesn’t have power, doesn’t want it. He’s just the Mayor. So you keep him around your shoulders as he tugs at your hair, taking Mayor-sized swigs from a can of TAB.

            What a cutie.

            Terezi is a little more difficult. You shift the Mayor so he rests on your hip, clutching your middle. You guide his face to nuzzle into your shirt as you approach her.

            “Hey Pyrope,” you call. She turns, sniffing at you, then grinning with those unnerving pointy teeth.

            “What’s up, Coolkid?” she replies, her red chalk still touching the floor. You don’t know what she’s drawing, but you don’t particularly care as you stand behind her. She angles back her head so she’s smiling up at you. There is a blade in your hand in an instant, and you jam it directly into the center of her forehead. She lets out a choked sound and you bustle back to avoid her torso falling against your legs, then back up and spin so Mayor’s curiosity doesn’t get the best of him and he raises his gaze. Of all things you’ve been doing, that would be what you’d feel guiltiest about. Power is different that scarring that little guy.

            Something in the air shifts.

            Something big.

            You roll your shoulders.

            Hi there, Alpha Session. Dave Strider here. Your players will be dead within the hour.

**== > Be the Heir of Breath**

            You are now the Heir of Breath. You suppose you could also be called John Egbert, but so many refer to you as the Heir nowadays and you’ve grown accustomed to it. It’s actually pretty cool.

            The golden ship on which you stand is in a large, green field, with rolling hills and a few reddish Stonehenge knockoffs. That’s what you’d assume the name of the planet to be, but that’d be LOHASK, which is one letter too many. You’re too eager now to think about planet names, though, because you’re actually at the Alpha Session! Three years of Davesprite and Jade and a bunch of amphibians as your only company was great and all, but you’re actually going to see Dave and Rose again! You’ve been looking so forward to it for so long! A year or so in the initial excitement and marvel of the Void and the old Beta Session and the new Alpha Session that awaited you faded, which left you feeling kind of empty and lonely and your stupid ever-changing teenager hormones did absolutely nothing to help that. Over the next year and a half, you were snappy and easily irritated. You spent a lot of time just hacking away at imps on LO%AS, exploring castles on Skaia, hovering around the lava on LOHAC just low enough so the tips of your toes felt like they would catch fire so adrenaline began pulsing through you. You often stood on the Scratch, too. Your soles would get hot as you stood on the warmed metal of the disc.

            After all that shit was done going down and your hormones had relaxed for the most part, you began spending time with Jade and Davesprite again. It was pleasant. Jade would make little remarks on your deeper voice and clearer skin and ruffled hair and firmer jaw while you’d make ones on her richer tone and daintier features (and held back on those about her wider hips and narrower waist). Davesprite even chimed in on how the hammer was doing wonders for your arms and shoulders and chest. When you shaved for the first time, it was hard, and you fought back tears because _where was your dad when you needed him_ but you managed with only a few tissue scraps stuck to your cheeks. But you’d grown up. There were times when you’d stare at yourself in the mirror and wonder what Dave looked like, or Rose. You’d consider Dave, his frame remaining lean and lithe, growing into his elbows and knees. Rose, too, with a curvier torso and a more melodic voice and a more sophisticated stare (if possible). Then you’d lean back on your heels and ponder the idea that maybe, they did the same.

            But you don’t need to imagine anymore. You can meet them in person once more and enfold them in a hug and laugh and talk about the past three years as you hunt for the Alpha kids.

            And you’d be happy.

            Three years is a lot of time to think. Most often, you found yourself thinking about Dave.

            You really want to tell him that.

            So now you’re soaring into the air at speeds that would peel a normal person’s skin, and Prospit seems like a pretty good place to start looking. You wonder what direction that’d be in. If Jade were here, she’d be able to zap the both of you there, but she left while you napped and apparently Davesprite did, too. Your memory flashes to teachers scolding you for being late to class, and you chuckle to yourself as you gather up air to contain you as you leave the atmosphere. There’s Skaia, so… yeah! A speck of gold! That’d be Prospit! You brace yourself, drawing a bit of power from your core as you’d practiced, then speeding toward the golden moon. It takes a while. Longer than you thought it would. You know that you would have heard the _boom_ of you breaking the sound barrier had you not been in the vacuum of space, but it still seems to take forever. Then there’s the Game helping you along, making sure you don’t take quite as long as though it knows you aren’t a Player of the session but still wants to help.

            As much as you had grown to hate the Game, you’ve come to appreciate all it does to help, even if it’s leading you into what could be your death.

            Eventually you’re holding onto a narrow golden spire, catching your breath (even though you don’t need to; you haven’t lost any sort of breath since you reached God Tier, not in exercise or anything) and looking around. The citizens all walk slowly, heads tipped downward as if they’re staring at their own dragging feet. You want to ask what’s going on, though you know you won’t get an answer. The small creatures don’t have any mouths to speak of (heh), so instead you just lower down and give one the most expressive look you can, pouring in all they might be able to read: confusion, worry, curiosity, bewilderment. It should be about the equivalent of a thoughtful, “What’s wrong?”

            The Prospitian that you’d landed in front of looks around, then treads over to the side of a building. Caught between two loose bricks is a sheet of gold-tinted paper, which it takes and hands to you. You smooth it out on your leg and examine it.

            “PAGE DEAD,” it reads. There’s an image of a boy who looks about your age and a little like Jade, his throat slightly swollen, his face lifeless. That must be one of the Players. You wonder how he’s going to get to God Tier with his Dream Self dead, but you decide it’s best not to think too hard on that because the Game will surely figure out some way to make it possible. After all, their session is dreadful enough, so it might not want to make it even more challenging. That’d just be cruel.

            You express your sadness and remorse with furrowed eyebrows and parted lips, touching the creature gently in comfort. It nods. You see the black of its eyes grow softer as it shares your emotion. It then takes your hand and moves it, pointing it at some of the towers. There are other Prospitians there, building them. Your face asks what happened. It turns over your palm and presses one of its shelled digits to your skin so it reddens, then points at the color. You don’t need it to continue. You’d read up on that in your own Derse library.

            “The Red Miles,” you murmur. It nods solemnly. You don’t like speaking when they can’t, so you try your best not to, but this was just terrible. And honestly, what could be powerful enough to use the Red Miles?

            _YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE MILES,_ the book read. That line was repeated so often per page that you had to put it down and find another.

            You clasp its little hand in yours in a farewell and take to the sky once more, curious if the other Player’s Dream Self is still alive. The swollen throat reminded you of what you looked like when you tried peanuts that one time as a young boy, and— _holy fuck that kid was poisoned, wasn’t he?_ But who would murder the Page? And what was his aspect? You have so many questions about this session that won’t be answered for ages, which is seriously annoying to think about so you don’t. You head up to one of the two towers, poking in your head and nope, no one there. The other is empty, too. You assume the four Players are probably off the moons and working hard to ascend to God Tier, but it was worth a shot.

            Flights between planets are boring and tedious. Just a few moments before you reach the new atmosphere you feel your air begin to thin, and though your chest doesn’t feel tight at all, you still need the oxygen air provides. At one planet, the deep breath you suck into your lungs burns, and you gather up the last of the air you’d surrounded yourself with and fill your lungs with that while you collect the pockets of fresh air littered around the area. You can’t find their Quest Beds anywhere. You’re not sure where they’d be.

            You linger in the bright sky of a planet that’s bright with color, color so pure and vivid that it almost stings to look at. You don’t know what to do from here. You deliberate whether or not to just return to the ship and wait for Jade, but she has to be somewhere, and she hasn’t contacted you yet so she must have found them by now. Though she’s a Space Player and you’re a Breath Player, so she has the clear advantage. It’s times like this when you wish for a traded aspect, but you really like what you have and don’t particularly want more than what you have and—

            That’s a scream.

            That’s another.

            That’s definitely a lot of screaming, holy fuck, _that’s a lot of screaming._

            You wiggle your fingers before clenching them into fists and rocketing out in the direction you’d heard it from, which could have been anywhere but with your control and understanding of the air you pinpoint exactly where it originated.

            You don’t know what you expected to find.

            But it wasn’t this.

            Two Quest Beds are all coated with blood. One body—that of the boy on the flyer—hangs off the (formerly) yellow one, the one with the winged symbol that you recall represents the Hope aspect. The other bed is empty, though blood pools at its foot. The symbol there is that of Life. You’re so focused on the symbol that the slamming of the girl’s body onto it startles you. You look up and it’s Dave there, thank God, he must have killed whoever murdered these Players.

            But he stares down at the dead girl with a minute smile. Like he’s proud. Like he’s pleased by the hole that blossoms in her chest.

            “Dave?” you shout out, and his head whips up to look at you.

            There’s a drop of blood on his temple.

            You were right about the way he’d grown into his body.           

            At least there’s that.

            “Dave!” you yell, diving down and skidding (or as close as you can come to it in midair) to a stop in front of him. The sword in his hand vanishes from sight.

            He blinks at you, once, twice, then tilts his head and does it again as if he can’t believe it’s you there in front of him. “John?” he asks, tone suspicious, unsure.

            Rather than answering, you look down at the two dead teenagers. “What have you done?” you breathe, eyes widening in horror. “What the fuck, Dave? Why did you just—?”

            A finger at your lips stills them. It is damp with blood and you try not to jerk back in disgust, instead remaining perfectly motionless as his eyes examine your features. After what seems like hours—though is probably only a few seconds—he draws his hand to the side to cup your cheek. He swipes his thumb along your cheekbone and you feel blood slicken the skin there. The swallow you give is tight and almost painful.

            You can’t speak, and he seems to realize that, because he murmurs, “I missed you, Egbert.”

            You think you’re going to cry if you say anything, so you don’t.

            His body is closer to yours now and you feel his heat. Your faces are inches apart. “I got so lonely, man. I was left with just my thoughts so much. I realized some things that I really wanted, some that I didn’t.”

            “Where’s Jade?” you finally manage to ask. His lips thin into a tense line, and he drifts back and points downwards into the blackness below you.

            “I killed her. She tried to defend these kids, so it was all heroic and shit. But she’s gone now. The Derse kids are offed, too.”

            You don’t know what to say, but your mouth moves. “Why?” your lips end up forming, but no noise escapes your throat.

            “Why?” he offers. You swallow again and nod once. Dave gives a little half-chuckle. “Power, John. I can’t get more, so I’m making sure no one can be better than me. And no one’s got any power when they’re dead.” He’s so casual in saying all this and it terrifies you.

            Then he’s near again, even closer than before; you feel his breath on your lips. His eyes search yours once more before he mutters, “But I’ve put a lot of thought into you. While I took their lives, I wondered what to do with yours.”

            You want to back away.

            There’s a hand where your neck meets your shoulder and suddenly you’re frozen.

            “I see you now.” Dave’s voice is soft, almost tender as his gaze moves down to the fingers that trace along your collarbone. You suppress a shudder and are shocked when you realize it isn’t from repulsion—you actually like him touching you like this. You tell yourself that you want to slap his hand away, but they’re words of comfort and you know for a fact that that’s the last thing you want to do. “I see you now,” he repeats, snapping you back to the situation at hand. “And I don’t want to kill you, John. I know I’m more powerful than you, aren’t I?”

            The hand is at your throat suddenly, and it’s such a surprise you suck in a breath that you don’t need. You’re getting short of breath, though it isn’t from the tight grip that he has on your neck. His eyes bore into yours. Just now your brain notes that his shades are gone. “Aren’t I more powerful than you?” he hisses. “Tell me I am, John. Tell me I’m better. Tell me I’m stronger.” The fingers constrict in a threat.

            “You are,” you gasp. “You are, you are.”

            “What am I?”

            “You’re better. Stronger. You’re far more powerful than I am, Dave, you really are.”

            Slackening, the hand at your throat glides up the side to tuck into your hair, tugging at it lightly. You bite your lip as he watches you intensely. “Okay,” he says, “You’re right. I am. I’m glad you understand that. Because I really didn’t want to kill you, Heir of Breath, that would’ve sucked.”

            “I really didn’t want to die,” you tell him. “Though I have no one to be a hero for, at this point, so it would have been pretty difficult.”

            He blinks, as if just now considering that. “Huh. You’re right again.” He says it like it’s hard to comprehend. “Guess that solidifies my decision,” Dave mutters, and then out of nowhere his lips connect with yours and you’re so, so confused and conflicted and yeah, you’d kissed Jade (which was too weird and you agreed to never try again or speak of it) and Davesprite (which was actually pretty great and you would sometimes poke each other and retreat from the room to ‘practice’ some more) but this was Dave Strider, Dave Strider that had just killed your two best friends and the Alpha Players and probably the trolls on the meteor, too, but for some stupid-ass reason that you don’t understand and will probably have you punching stone walls in frustration later _you don’t care._ Dave’s kissing you and you find yourself kissing him back and suddenly he’s all possessiveness, all rough brushes on your skin and harsh hissed “mine”s and you can’t help but whisper “yours” with his own breath.

            You’re so stupid and you’d so fucked up and you know that Dave is insane and he’s not in his right mind and this isn’t the Dave you messaged for hours a day on a computer application but you love him you love him so much and you want him to do this you want him to suck sores into your skin and seize you close every night and maybe, just maybe, you’re just as

            insane

            as he is.


End file.
